This is blog attempt number 7. I have begun six separate entries and deleted them all, one by one. I have a head-ache, and a head-cold, and a head-scarf (wait, that’s there all the time) and on top of it all, I got a speeding ticket today.

*groan*

And my medication causes sleeplessness, which means I’ve been sleeping very badly for the last two days- waking up every hour, on the hour, the whole time with a pounding headache.

*sigh*

Ok, time to push the reset button. Here we go.

*pokes self in forehead*

All praise is due to Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Generous, my Lord, my Guide, my Protector. He it is who gave me the headache to test my patience and to remove from me some sin, provided I pass the test. The head-cold was by His leave as well, because nothing reminds you what a blessing health is quite as well as illness. The head-scarf, well I rather like this scarf. It’s warm and fuzzy. So Alhamdulillah for it all, even the headache and the headcold, because:

“Any trouble, any sickness or disease, any worry, any grief, any problem or anything sad or painful, even the prick of a thorn to a Muslim results (due to patience) in the forgiveness of his sins.” Hadith according to Abu Hurairah and Abu Sa’eed, on the authority of both Bukhari and Muslim.

I remember this lecture that I attended once, it was about how having the right intention for something can make the difference between blessings and sins. For example, if you go to the Masjid to pray just so that people can see you praying there, that’s a sin. However, if your intention was just to earn extra blessings by joining the Jamaat prayer, going to the Masjid is a blessing. This applies to everything, absolutely everything that we do. Being sick, I can moan and complain and wallow in self-pity, losing blessings, or even earning sin depending on what I moan about (“God, why me?”). Or, I can remind myself that this is a test, and if I pass, I have traded some of my sins in for a mild headache and a cold, neither of which compare to the hell I could have traded them in for instead. And it literally is a trade-off. Or rather, a trade-in. You earn either blessings or sins, depending on what you’ve been up to, and then you cash them in after you die, either for eternal paradise with people you love and the pleasure of Allah, or for eternal inferno (crackle crackle) with the Angels of hell (btw, did you know that there were nine, total?) and Allah’s displeasure.

Yeah, I know you know this. I know it too. And I know, that you know that I know, so there. It’s just that my brain gets addled and I forget it. So I’m reminding myself, first and foremost, to take all stress in a grateful and patient stride, and to remember my Lord in times of both hardship and ease. InshaAllah.

Labels: Islam

posted by Abez @ 12/05/2003 06:41:00 PM